


What are they doing in Heaven today?

by zedtheunicorn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Apocalypse, Human Castiel, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-09 14:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3253667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zedtheunicorn/pseuds/zedtheunicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Endverse. For the first time he can remember, Cas is somewhat sober.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What are they doing in Heaven today?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DestielAlways](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielAlways/gifts).



 

The last dregs rattled like a dying breath as he shook the bottle. It did nothing to help the nausea clawing at his throat, the trembling in his bones. At that moment he wished he could be Dean, hurling it at the wall and somehow escape _feeling_.

Being human wasn't an advantage. It didn't remind him to perform basic functions any more than a hollow ache, a bitter taste in his mouth he drank to drown out. The only thing he had received which he would never have had as an angel was a silent screaming in his bones, a desperation in his soul he couldn't shake.

He lost everything to gain it, and there wasn't a more sadistic joke in the world. He'd always been able to trust in his instincts, to utilise everything his Father had given him. To trust heaven and to be the soldier it required. There was nothing more than knocking the bottle to the floor with a passive hand, the other propping up his sweat-covered face. When it smashed, he didn't spare it a glance.

Then hands were raking through his hair, threatening to tear his scalp.

It didn’t matter, of course. Jimmy Novak was no longer someone he could be held accountable to. The vessel had become his accursed body, a bitter trap of meat and pain he didn’t have to take care of anymore.

_I am an Angel of The Lord_

His hand reached for the next bottle on the table, bumping Dean’s abused card deck out of the path of his hand, scattering it amongst the shards.

"For fuck's sake," he mumbled, and the way his voice wasn't cracking told him he'd been shouting again, at some point he couldn't remember. It didn’t ache with disuse like he wanted it to. Silence was a solace he was no longer afforded. Something he no longer deserved as a human.

Drinking until his body could cope only by passing out stopped that inane screaming and even then half of the time he wished there was something more permanent. His bones creaked and his muscles burned as he reached further, his arm outstretched, the rest of him curled up with legs to his chest like a child.

His fingernails scraped the neck of the next bottle and a hand knocked his out of the way.

"Easy there, angel."

The word felt like an insult. To call him a celestial being – when he could feel the pulse in his head, his body’s craving for any drug it could receive, any kind of reprieve – it made him feel sick.

There was nothing powerful left in him, no other plane to stretch his true form and let each face yawn, each wing reaching for the next path of righteousness. It was just a cage of blood and bone that was further confined by hours and hours of self-loathing.

Cas glared at the face only marginally cleaner than his, a face he couldn't plaster a name to.

"Get out," he spat.

The rage sputtered out when the intruder left.

_You have to sort him out. The others are getting restless. He's wasting resources we don't have._

Cas started to shiver, his stomach feeling like it was twisting itself up and around his ribs. He grabbed the bottle and swigged.

The stale beer tasted like the bad weed batch he'd smoked the day before. His insides threatened to burn, to lurch their way up his throat. If he'd had any Grace left, he'd have known exactly what was plaguing his body and cured it.Liver failure, perhaps. He no longer knew or cared. Everything was foggy. Too static. There was no room in this human brain for scrutinizing anything at a molecular level.

_No one confronts him but me. Understand? You try and take anything from him he'll tear you apart._

Cas winced when the retort finally reached through the thin door. The gravel in Dean’s voice was a memory they’d both prefer to forget, and here Cas was, in the same scenario and he couldn’t stop himself. 

_He was one of God's soldiers. You don’t talk to him._

He opened his hand and let the bottle fall, soaking its shattered contents onto the cards and glass to drown out the voices outside. Cas covered his face with his hands. The ache yawned in his bones and the shivering increased.

"Just cos you can't drink liqueur stores anymore doesn't mean you have to try."

It wasn't until calloused hands drew his face upwards that he realised his face was stained with tears. He felt his expression crumple in a terrible, pathetic way. If he'd cared he would have shoved Dean away. It was worse that he didn't have the co-ordination.

"Leave me, Dean. Please. I need-"

Dean lowered himself to his knees, reducing the painful angle that Cas's head was at. He was close enough to see the bright green of the hunter's eyes, a hue that was painful to look at. Close up, Cas could see every tiny scar on his face, mementos of bar fights and hunts gone wrong.

"I need- I can't be lucid, Dean. I can't stand it. I can't face this. I can’t face anything. You of all people should understand this."

Something behind Dean's eyes shorted out, his sympathetic smile becoming a little frigid.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." His smile stretched again. "Neither of us are the men our dads wanted. Maybe we were once. That's okay."

Cas tried to shake his head and Dean wouldn't let him move.

"Dean. I loathe every moment that I am...this. I no longer have the capacity to see every atom of my vessel but believe me when I say I hate this. Being this. Being-"

"Human, Cas. That's the word you're looking for. I get it. I really do. There’s nothing worse," The corner of his mouth curled with what Cas saw to be regret. Dean's hands dropped away from Cas's face.

 _The paths of the righteous and the damned are easier to tread than the course to humanity,_ Cas shook his head to try and rid it of the thought.

The ex-angel watched as Dean carefully unslung the gun and its holster from his shoulder, wincing. The hunter rolled his shoulders and he laid the weapon on the sideboard, next to the incense.

"You really like this hippy stuff, huh?"

Cas shrugged, wiping the tears from his face with his thumbs.

"Well, I guess it beats the smell of stale beer and expired soap," Dean nodded, sitting opposite him. The hunter had just started drumming his fingers on the spindly table when they both turned to the door, the undercurrent of anger drifting under it clearer than anything. He watched Dean become very still.

He couldn’t take the silence in the room, overshadowed by the rage outside.

"It's my fault, isn't it?" Cas's head was starting to pound as his body started to crave any chemical escape it could.

Dean's expression became vicious. "No, Cas. It's not you." He walked to the door, his boots thudding loudly on the old wooden floor.

The weak door screamed as Dean wrenched it open, the bellowing instantly magnified.

"He doesn't belong here and you know it! There's no place for his kind here! Not in this world. He's part of the damn problem. Fucking throw him to the croatoans -"

Cas flinched and couldn't help but listen, though a more logical side of him begged him not to, pleaded not to add another hateful voice in his head.

He heard nothing at all.

It took Cas several attempts to stand, staggering over to the wall as the world tilted violently. His head thudded, his hands scrabbled against the wooden walls to keep himself up. He made it to the door and leaned against its frame, wheezing with the effort. He watched Dean sink a fist into the man he’d seen earlier, kicking the man’s friend to the ground.

“You’re damn lucky my gun’s inside. If you and your buddy aren’t out of this camp in an hour and if I ever see either of you again, I will gut you and trust me when I say I’ve done it before. Find your own goddamn way out of Armageddon!” Dean left them in the dirt and took Cas by the arms. Cas walked backwards obediently, catching a glimpse of bloodied mud over his shoulder.

Dean kicked the door shut; his protective anger ebbed away as the threat to Cas did the same.

Cas merely felt uncomfortable, the uneasiness in his bones screaming for a relent.

“You’re wrong, Dean. This is my fault.” He took the hunter’s hand gingerly, rummaging in his pocket for a spare roll of gauze. He wrapped the bleeding knuckles tightly, seeing Dean’s eyebrows raise out of the corner of his eyes.

“What?”

“Never knew you knew how to wrap a hand for boxing. Not sure I need that right now.”

“Consider it a ‘just in case’,” Cas replied, swaying slightly. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

Dean nodded and the gesture was somehow sarcastic. “No, I really did.” Dean led him back to a chair, gently.

"Now's a good time as any," the hunter muttered, raking a hand through his hair. "I think you need this, now. More than I ever did."

Cas felt Dean's fingers slip something over his head, then a literal thud against his heart. He looked down, and his whole body ceased its shaking.

"Where-"

Dean smiled his crinkly -eyed smile, the one Cas hadn't seen since Dean had lost Sam. "Mysterious ways, and all that."

The aching hollow relented against what was once Dean’s most prized possession.

Then the amulet started to burn.


End file.
